I. General Information
School Name: Beach Grove Elementary
School District: SD#37 Delta
Inquiry Team Members: Josie Zahn: jzahn@deltaschools.ca
Jacquie Von Schulmann: jvonscholmann@deltaschools.ca
Angela Vaughan: avaughan@deltaschools.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: avaughan@deltaschools.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7)
Curricular Areas Addressed:
Focus Addressed: Literacy
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? How to support all learners in their reading development.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: Teachers were noticing a correlation between reading and spelling. This began as an interest in learning more about the Science of Reading. We were noticing more and more students were needing reading support, but there was less time available for learning support and more behavioural demands in the classroom leading to less time for small group reading instruction from the classroom teacher.
Focus: Our school has focused on writing for the last 3 years, and within that time a number of teachers became interested in the UFLI program. Teachers were noticing a correlation between reading and spelling. Our primary teachers are using the UFLI program and are part of a district pilot and are receiving extra professional development in the Science of Reading. Our district is also collecting reading data and we thought this would be a good opportunity to be part of that.
Hunch: We are wondering about having teachers following one phonics program as part of their literacy instruction and collecting data based on that, and how that might affect consistency to look outside of our individual classes. We are struggling with how to support diverse needs and wondering if we can come up with a school wide way of supporting larger groups of students.
New Professional Learning: Our primary teachers are using the UFLI program (ufli.education.ufl.edu/foundations/toolbox/) and are part of a district pilot and are receiving extra professional development in the Science of Reading. Delta school district’s reading data website: deltalearns.ca/elementaryliteracy/new-reading-data/. As part of our district’s pilot program, we also have access to our district’s literacy coordinators, Jason Hodgins and Megan Sandham, who will be conducting Lunch and Learns at our school as well as a couple of workshops during our in-school Pro D days and collaboration time.
Taking Action: In Term 1, all teachers used the ORF assessment to get some initial oral reading data and the primary teachers also used the district assessment for phonemic and phonics .We submitted it to our district coordinators who printed out graphs of our class data. At one of the Pro D days we looked at our class data and looked at learning profiles and thought about next steps we would take for our classes. Our district Pro D was also focused on literacy. At the district Pro D, there were a bunch of games that were set up that helped develop certain phonics concepts and there was an interest in using these to support students in need. During collaboration time, teachers were encouraged to look at their class profile and games that may support phonics skills.
Checking: It was helpful that the whole school was doing the same assessments and collecting the same kind of data. Being able to see the data from term 1 versus term 2 helped us to see areas of growth as well as areas of continued need.
Reflections/Advice: Continuing on the theme of learning takes patience and time, we are trying to remember to keep the scale small and then to build from there. Our staff really appreciated the ORF assessment because we did it school-wide and liked having the time to listen to each child read, especially the intermediates, as they don’t usually get that chance to hear students read each term. We also appreciated having the district coordinators support because of their willingness to support in our classrooms helping with assessment and having time to discuss our findings. This provided a broader understanding about the science of reading, as well as the district’s focus. Moving forward, we are trying to find a better way to support children with diverse needs in more creative ways.
Our staff would like to try grouping children according to phonics skills that are needed and we are exploring more ways of doing this as a larger community rather than class by class. For example, children who needed support in digraphs could go to a teacher to get more targeted instruction and this may involve children in a variety of classes. Each classroom teacher would have a different targeted focus. We are going to schedule a daily block for this to occur in order to make the most of the teaching staff who is available as well as to make this consistent throughout the year.